Five Women teams of volleyball heading to the finals in SWATCH FIVB World Tour
Five Women’s teams of volleyball have made their way to the second-round of single-elimination play for this week. SWATCH FIVB World Tour event is being played in Rome, Italy. The chosen teams are from China, Brazil, USA, Germany and Austria. The event has total prize money of US$600,000.
Interestingly, six out of top eight-seeded teams have won the pools as per expectations. It leads by Juliana Felisberta Silva and Larissa Fanca of Brazil, followed by second seeded United States’s Jen Kessy and April Ross. During the first three days of the international Beach Volleyball competition at the Parco Del Foro Italico courts, all eight teams went through the elimination round. They played by making 3-0 pool play marks.
Foro Italico as a venue, invites both men’s and women’s tournaments. The men’s competition was the third tournament in the 2010 SWATCH FIVB World Tour calendar. This Saturday, matches will take place for Women’s semi finals as well. The medal matches will be played on Sunday evening. Sunday will get busier as the men’s “final fours” will be conducted along with the winning teams. Each gender winning the match would earn the prize money of $43,500.
Sixth-seeded Salgado sisters, named Carolina and Maria Clara earned an elimination bye at the Foro Italico Beach Volleyball Grand Slam pool. Whereas, Juliana and Larissa were one of the two Brazilian pairs who won the Grand Slam. The beach volleyball segment will have teams from Germany and United States, who secured the top spot in their pools on Thursday.
After defeating a team from Australia on Thursday afternoon, Juliana and Larissa will be on the lookout for a third-straight gold medal in Italy this weekend. They have already won 15 straight games in Italy. After securing a fifth place in their first Italian tournament, both started playing volleyball in the year 2004. Both Juliana and Larissa won back-to-back gold medals in Milan and Modena in 2005 and 2006.
With a perfect pool, Americans play-marks placed Jen and Ross in the second position and seeded Nicole and May-Treanor on the fifth. German girls Sara Goller and Laura Ludwig, and Katrin Holtwick and Ilka Semmler were placed on the seventh spot. The position was shared with another pair of Schwaiger sisters (Doris and Stefanie) from Australia. China secured the 14th spot in the rankings which included Chen Xue and Xi Zhang.
Fourth Seeded Angie Akers and Tyra Tunner were defeat by Holtwick and Semmier by securing the pool title. Xue and Zhang secured their pool by defeating third seeded Maria Antonelli and TalitaAntunes of Brazil, on Thursday.
“We are playing much better now,” exclaimed a fifth placed and a seventh place winner with Xue in the first two SWATCH, a 25 year old Zhang. These SWATCH games were played this season in Brazil and China. She continues saying, “After not playing together for almost 20 months since the Beijing Olympic Games, we are still trying to develop our past chemistry. The past three days we have felt very comfortable together.”
Both Xue and Zhang (21 year old) have a history of winning four SWATCH FIVB World Tour gold medals, two each in the year 2006 and 2008. This was before they placed themselves on the third place in the 2008 Olympic Games by defeating the pair of Renata Ribeiro and Talita, in a bronze medal competition. The Chinese pair collected 16 medals in their first 38 SWATCH events together and fought 19 semi-finals from 2006 to the 2008 in the Summer Games.
Brazil will have all three of its participants competing in the Foro Italico Beach Volleyball Grand Slam, in upper half of the pool. In the top half of the elimination bracket, Akers and Turner along with the Brazilians and Germans are going to play the matches. Joined by the other two Americans, they will also be playing against the Chinese.
As the Roman Tournament comes to a close, the 2010 SWATCH FIVB World Tour Calendar will stir to single-gender events. The event is going to take place starting from the 25th to the 30th of May. Seoul will host the events for the women and while Myslowice for men. Moscow is going to welcome another Grand Slam event on the 2010 SWATCH FIVB World Tour fom June 7 till June 14.
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